Iran suspends flights to Saudi Arabia due to ‘technical disagreement’

Iran’s national flag carrier, Iran Air, has suspended flights to Saudi Arabia that were set to restart after eight years, in a “technical disagreement” which some fear may signal a deterioration in the two countries’ recently-resumed relations.

Scheduled pilgrimage flights to Saudi Arabia’s coastal city of Jeddah from the Iranian cities of Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan were cancelled today. According to Iran Air’s spokesman, Hesam Ghorbanali, cited by the Iranian state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the cancellation was due to the fact that Saudi authorities did not issue the necessary permits.

The flights, which were set to have relaunched today, would have been the first from Iran to Saudi Arabia in eight years, following around a decade of increased tensions between Tehran and Riyadh and their diplomatic breakdown.

Iranian authorities had initially announced the plans for restarting flights back in March, after Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed upon a reconciliation and restoration of diplomatic ties that month in a landmark deal brokered by China.

Many have since expressed fears or predictions that the reconciliation would not last and would eventually fall apart, with this latest cancellation of flights apparently furthering those concerns of a political and diplomatic setback.

Iran’s Minister of Culture, Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaeili, has attempted to hamper those concerns, however, assuring in a televised statement that the issue is “a technical disagreement” between the countries’ aviation authorities and is “nothing serious”.

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